Known in the art is an internal combustion engine which arranges an exhaust purification catalyst in an engine exhaust passage, which arranges a hydrocarbon feed valve upstream of the exhaust purification catalyst inside the engine exhaust passage, where precious metal catalysts are carried on exhaust gas flow surfaces of the exhaust purification catalyst, where basic exhaust gas flow surface parts are formed around the precious metal catalysts, and which injects hydrocarbons from the hydrocarbon feed valve by a predetermined period at the time of engine operation and thereby removes the NOX which is contained in the exhaust gas (for example, see Patent Literature 1). In this internal combustion engine, even if the temperature of the exhaust purification catalyst becomes a high temperature, a high NOX purification rate can be obtained.